retrieval object

Object retrieval was a mass participation art project that took place from 15-21 October 2009 on a converted routemaster bus in the main quadrangle at Ucl (University college london) on Gower Street, london. a single object from the Ucl Pathology collections was exhibited on the bus and explored by thousands of people from their own personal or professional perspectives for 7 days, 24 hours a day. these explorations were recorded on the project website in a range of media. the results were astonishing with contributions ranging from the hyper-scientific to childhood memories via the Gospels, jack Kerouac, Psychoanalysis and pretty much everything in between. While the event only lasted a week the knowledge and ideas that surrounded the object are still being generated to reveal new meanings.

“SOrry, What iS thiS?”

What did We diScOver?a short tour of an infinitesimal amount of the wide variety of things people found out.

Mayr, E. The Growth of Biological Thought: Belknap,1982

Luria, AR. The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology: Harvard,1979

It was a bashed, beaten and (as it turns out) eaten toy car that was the unpromising specimen at the heart of Object Retrieval, a one week, 24 hour a day, research project, on a Routemaster bus in the quad of University College London.

The object came from the UCL Pathology Collections based at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. I don’t think anyone had bothered with it for years. It was confiscated from a child who was admitted in 1963, with lead poisoning, to Great Ormond Street Hospital (founded in 1852 by Dr Charles West). Apparently the red paint on the car contained lead.

We could see that the kid had managed to lick or chew off all of the white paint but he did not do so well with the red paint. The pigment analysis conducted by geo-archaeologist Dr Ruth Siddall showed quite a slow reaction for lead content. The scanning electron microscope analysis conducted by Dr Emma Passmore determined that the red colour was a mixture of two types of paint; the first was dominated by the chemical element Pb (which stands for lead but could also be an acronym for ‘page break’, ‘personal best’, ‘peanut butter’ or ‘playboy’, amongst others).

But not even Emma could confirm that there was enough lead in the red paint chewed off the toy car to poison a child. In fact, it seems pretty likely that this kid was eating all kinds of non-nutritious things as he had ‘pica’.

Pica is a medical disorder characterised by an appetite for non-nutritive substances. While common in children, it can be dangerous. In the Glore Psychiatric Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri, USA, there is an arrangement of 1,446 items swallowed by a patient and removed from her intestines and stomach. She died during surgery from bleeding caused by 453 nails, 42 screws, safety pins, spoon tops, and the lids of salt and pepper shakers. One of the most common forms of pica is Trichophagia, the consumption of hair or wool. The name of the condition ‘pica’ comes from the Latin word for magpie, a bird that is reputed to eat almost anything. Magpies have also been discovered to recognise themselves in mirrors. These findings represent the first evidence of mirror self-recognition in a non-mammalian species.

The toy car was probably originally kept as an aid for teaching medical students, to demonstrate the hazards of childhood activity in a material item, but before we retrieved it, I don’t think it had been taken out of storage for years (if, indeed, it ever had been). When we asked to see it, the curator, Paul Bates, didn’t know where it was and it took ages to find it amongst all the various other bits and bobs that kids had swallowed, sucked, or got stuck with, which included (would you credit it) a pair of lead nipple shields, and a rather scary collection of small display boxes housing items (safety pins, pieces of bark, a marble, that sort of thing) removed from young girls’ genitalia.

The curator refused to sing karaoke at ‘Karaoke with the Curator’ on the top deck of the Object Retrieval bus but he did watch other people sing in-between answering questions on the Pathology Collections and how it came to pass that the particular and eclectic series of objects that form the Great Ormond Street Hospital Pathology Collections ended up at the Royal Free. (Basically, Paul went down there with his van and saved them from being thrown out.)

The child admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital was placed under the care of Professor Alan Moncrieff, a pioneer in the development of child health, who was knighted for his groundbreaking work in paediatrics. There are, of course, other Sir Alans.

Sister Hazel Bigg (who stated that she was not connected in anyway with Ronnie Biggs) who happened across the Object Retrieval bus by chance, was, by a happy coincidence, a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital in the 1960s. She recalled Sir Alan (‘Prof Moncrieff’) as a brilliant physician who was excellent with children. When I spoke on the phone to Sir Alan’s second son, Martin Moncrieff (himself a distinguished Paediatrician) he mentioned his father’s close collaborator at the hospital, Professor Barbara Clayton, a biochemist, who made the chemical analyses related to specific cases. It will almost certainly have been Professor Clayton who wrote the toxicology report relating to the lead content of the paint on the car.

Born in 1922, the major part of Dame Barbara Clayton’s career was spent in the laboratory, particularly at Great Ormond Street. She later moved to Southampton, becoming a highly successful Dean of its Medical School, one of Britain’s rare institutions that experimented with new educational methods. She served on numerous government committees and was also president of the Royal College of Pathologists. She sounds like an incredible woman.

It may well have been the Professor Clayton who sent the toy car to the Great Ormond Street archivist, who photographed the confiscated object and gave the image the index number 25063, which as a zip code, gives you Clay County, West Virginia, USA. The precise zip code is in fact Strange Creek in Clay County.

Strange Creek is also the name of a Classic and Southern Rock and Roll band. They are from the USA, which makes them Non-European. The child who was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1963 was described as being of “Non-European” extraction but we didn’t think they meant he was from the USA. He was also described as being “mentally retarded” which, while sounding outdated, is in fact a clinical definition of someone with an IQ under 70.

Children with an IQ way over 70 include Lily, who came to the ‘Scrap Book Challenge’ on the top deck and made a prototype cross between a helicopter, car and boat, and Neal who devised the ‘sub motor’ which is a cross between a car, boat, VTOL aircraft and a submarine. Unlike these model vehicles of the future, made from the would-be recycling of UCL staff, the toy car was really badly mounted. The CT scan made by Professor Robert Spiller, shows just how unsatisfactorily it was handled. A ruddy great screw was drilled through the bottom, rendering its wheel action (surely the main purpose of every toy car) null and void.

The car, a model of the 1960 Ford Sunliner, the widest car ever produced (actually we talked to a guy called Milton who said he could drive one to UCL for us but this never materialised) was made by TootsieToy, the first company in the world to make and sell die-cast toys. It was called TootsieToy because Tootsie was the name of the daughter of one of its founders. Tootsie makes me think of the US toffee candy ‘Tootsie Rolls’ and Dustin Hoffman in drag. Of course some of these cars are highly collectable and in their original packaging can fetch considerable sums. Car, model and design enthusiasts as well as people who are nostalgic for their childhood collect them.

In fact, the UCL Pathology Collections toy car is pretty well worthless. I bought one in much better condition with a Rambler Station Wagon into the bargain for £2.49 off eBay. I was the only person that bothered to bid. Clearly everyone else in the world agrees that this is a useless object.

Except that…

Wheezing from the increasing material suffocation of capitalism, not least in the ever-growing archives of museums and galleries, perhaps we need to rethink the materiality of objects in terms of the life they have led and the context in which they are situated.

Object Retrieval was about showing that any object could give rise to a network of interconnected strands of knowledge and research. It might as well have been any other object that we chose; or for that matter a speck of dust. As it happens, it was a toy car.

Joshua Sofaer, April 2010

“Sorry, what is this?” was the much parroted cry of the casual passer-by to the 24 hour 7 day event that was Object Retrieval. To be fair, it was a reasonable question prompted by an altogether unusual situation: a toy car coated in lead paint, once sucked by a 4 year old boy to the detriment of his health, then housed in the cupboards of a university Pathology collection as a warning to others, before being plucked out of obscurity 40 years later and stuck on a plinth aboard a big red bus to be scrutinised by experts and the general public. During the course of those 7 days and much to the credit of the 7 on-board Research Provocateurs this question of “Sorry, what is this?” was met with an unremittingly enthusiastic and informative response. Whether it was 9 o’clock on Monday morning or gone midnight on Friday and the question was posed by a half-tanked student, a slightly too precocious 6 year old or a time-pressured professor, a patient and honest answer was always given.

Question: “Sorry, what is this?” Answer: “This is Object Retrieval, a meditation on museological interpretation”; “an educational initiative”; “public engagement”; “experimental research”; “archaeology”; “a fun day out”.

Each of these answers was true and, depending on who had asked the question, one was chosen for its likelihood of encouraging that person to participate in the project, to feel that it was for them, to situate the project in a context they might understand and appreciate. However, there was another answer that was not discussed very much during Object Retrieval for which I would like to make a claim.

Question: “Sorry, what is this?”Answer: “This is art.”

Yes, art, a slippery word but one that is inescapably powerful. How exactly was Object Retrieval art you ask? Well, most simply put, it was conceived by an artist, developed and produced with an art curator, delivered and performed by artists and drew heavily on the history of participatory and socially engaged art practice. Much more than this though, Object Retrieval was art because it allowed all the other answers to be true simultaneously. It was art as a fluid entity capable of drawing together an unlikely ensemble of participants and disciplines in a short space of time to create something together. Art that can do this is clearly not about objects or galleries, instead it is art as an attitude or a way of thinking plus a desire to create situations in the ‘outside’ world in which that attitude might prove enlightening. It is this attitude that I would like to explore further by drawing an analogy with the 19th-century Romantic gentleman scientist, a number of whom have graced UCL’s illustrious history.

The evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr defined such Romantic scientists and then their Classical scientist counterparts as ‘…bubbling over with ideas that have to be dealt with quickly to make room for the next one. Some of these are superbly innovative, others invalid if not silly. […]

The Classic [Scientist] by contrast concentrates on the perfection of something that already exists. He tends to work over a subject exhaustively. He also tends to defend the status quo.’ I would like to suggest there is a certain eccentricity and maverick tendency, a healthy but useful distrust of the rules of the game, and an independence from the institution that seem familiar to both the Romantic Scientist and the Contemporary Artist – a shared attitude if you will. Extending this analogy a little further to the situation of Object Retrieval, developmental psychologist AR Luria claimed that, ‘Romantic Science’s main goal is to view an event from as many perspectives as possible. The eye of science does not probe ‘a thing’, an event isolated from other things or events. Its real object is to see and understand the way a thing or event relates to other things or events.’ I think Luria would have enjoyed participating in Object Retrieval.

I don’t mean to suggest that contemporary artists are the new Victorian gentlemen but the comparison does help to illustrate an attitude, once found among scientists and now more prevalent, among artists. One reason that this is the case is that while scientists are too often bound by the time, funding and other pressures of the modern research environment, artists are generally freer to re-position themselves and consciously do so. In contrast to the independently wealthy gent of the 19th century, however, the artist often has to find other ways to maintain their position. For the duration of one week Object Retrieval and its creators intended to propagate this artistic/Romantic attitude among as many people as possible, not claiming it as the exclusive domain of artists but simply creating a framework in which participants of all backgrounds could share in it.

So let us return to the question again with a little of this in mind.

Question: “Sorry, what is this?” Answer: “This is Object Retrieval. It is art as an attitude; art as permission to rethink something you thought you already knew about; art as freedom to step outside of personal and professional bounds; art as a space for genuine interdisciplinarity. And it is all these things manifested as an event on a bus with a toy car on a plinth that draws together a half-tanked student, a slightly too precocious 6 year old and a time-pressured professor in a democratic space where they can each offer something of themselves in an open, equal and mutually stimulating way and which leads to something that is superbly innovative, creatively and intellectually rewarding and possibly a bit silly. So by all means call this museology or public engagement or an educational initiative but remember that it is art that made this possible.”

Simon Gould, April 2010

credits

Object Retrieval – You are the Routemaster 15–21 October 2009 at UCL, Gower Street, London

A project by Joshua Sofaer, curated by Simon Gould In association with UCL Museum & Collections

Publication designed by David Caines Word map compiled and edited by Rhiannon Armstrong

www.objectretrieval.com www.joshuasofaer.com www.ucl.ac.uk/museums

Research Provocateurs and Public Communicators: Rhiannon Armstrong Richard Allen Katy Beinart Camilla Brueton Simon Bowes Catherine Hoffmann Ruth Holdsworth

Website developed by Athanasios Velios

Chemistry experiments by Andrea Sella and Mark Miodownik Karaoke by Hot Breath Karaoke Object and conversation provided by Paul Bates, UCL Pathology Collections Curator

Bus provided by Anthony Roberts and Colchester Arts Centre Exhibition installation by Susie Chan Electrics by Syd Funnell Plinth made by Andrew Miller

Graphic design by Lee Thomas Video Ident by Lu Elliott Logo design by Goh Ideta

IT support by Andy Sykes and Sam Washington

Advisory Committee: Jack Ashby Jayne Dunn Mark Lythgoe

With thanks to: Sally MacDonald Natasha McEnroe David Price Nick Tyler Rosalind Tunnicliffe Michael Worton UCL Museums & Collections Wellcome Trust

First published in UK 2010 by Little Museum

ISBN: 978-0-9561365-5-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder, or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in its contents.

© Joshua Sofaer and UCL Museums & Collections, 2010